Sunday, June 24, 2012

Monday, June 18, 2012

I wanted a spindle project for when I couldn't be tied to a wheel, so I turned to the lovely green Loop top and my new turkish spindle.

I do love the sparkle, the beautiful long color changes and the fact that it drafts so effortlessly. I'm not sold on the idea of a center pull preparation though. Since it's unspun, you can't really pull on it with much force without it breaking . After the first few breaks, I found myself gingerly tugging on it to pull out a bit at a time. But that got annoying pretty quickly, so I've been reaching in and pulling out whole wads at a time, untangling and then spinning just that section. It's a real pity I didn't just start from the outside end. It should get better through, as the middle part empties out.

Monday, June 11, 2012

I used the black colonial wool to practice some Navajo plying. Here's the single:

And the 3-ply:

I really have to work on distributing the twist evenly when plying. The worst of the it will likely even out in the wash I bet, but there's definitely room for improvement in my plying technique. I have a lot of trouble controlling the treadle and bobbin of singles while simultaneously trying to set up the three strands for the next bit of plying.

This was just a warm up. I'm trying to get better at Navajo plying for I can ply this:

I got it off the bobbin and into a centerpull ball, thinking I would make a swirly 2-ply. But now I've decided to try for a 3-ply, with the bonus of conserving the order of the colors.